like sparkling
fragments of remarks; I feel that there is a great conception behind,
but I am still in the dark as to what it is.

There are two or three other authors whose books I read with interest.
One of these is John Oliver Hobbes. Her books do not seem to me to be
exactly natural; it is all of the nature of a scenic display. But there
is abundance of nobility and even of passion; and the style is
original, nervous, and full of fine aphorisms. There is a feeling of
high and chivalrous courage about her characters; they breathe perhaps
too lofty an air, and are, if anything, too true to themselves. But it
is a dignified romance, rather mediaeval than modern, and penetrated
with a pungent aromatic humour which has a quality of its own.

Mrs. Humphry Ward is another writer whose books I always read. I am
constantly aware of a great conscientiousness in the background. The
scenery, the people, are all studied with the most sedulous and patient
care; but I somehow feel, at all events in the earlier works, that the
moral attitude of the writer, a kind of Puritan agnosticism, interferes
with the humanity of the books; they seem to me to be as saturated with
principle as Miss Yonge's books, written from a very different
standpoint, were. I feel that I am not to be allowed my own
preferences, and that to enjoy the books I must be in line with the
authoress. Mrs. Ward's novels, in fact, seem to me the high-water mark
of what great talent, patient observation, and faithful work can do;
but the light does not quite shine through. Yet it is only just to say
that every book Mrs. Ward writes seems an improvement on the last.
There is a wider, larger, freer conception of life; more reality, more
humanity, as well as more artistic handling; and they are worth careful
reading; I shall certainly include one or two in my consignment.

George Moore seems to me to be one of the best writers on the stage.
Esther Waters, Evelyn Innes, and Sister Theresa, are books of the
highest quality. I have a sense in these books of absolute reality. I
may think the words and deeds of the characters mysterious, surprising,
and even sometimes disgusting; but they surprise and disgust me just as
the anomalies of human beings affect me. I may not like them, but I do
not question the fact that the characters spoke and behaved as they are
supposed to behave. Moreover, Evelyn Innes and Sister Theresa are
written in a style of matchless lucidity and prec